


know that I could crush you

by DesdemonaKaylose



Category: Johnny the Homicidal Maniac
Genre: Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, F/F, Kink Meme, Mild Sexual Content, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-03
Updated: 2018-02-03
Packaged: 2019-03-12 21:51:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13556298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: "How dare she not even talk to me when I'm ignoring her?"





	know that I could crush you

**Author's Note:**

> I don't feel like fucking around with anon so this is a fill for [the kink meme](https://jthm-kinkmeme.tumblr.com/post/170320307075/annetess-unresolved-sexual-tension-or-hate-sex). Yall woulda known it was me the minute you saw the first emdash anyway.

Anne Gwish is by far the coolest person at this club. This indisputable fact is quickly confirmed by a quick look around the room—that guy over there in the corner surreptitiously trying to get his fang glued back into place is bringing the whole place's mean coolness level down by several degrees, for one thing. Anne leans into Cleo’s lighter and puffs life into her clove cigarette as she takes a quick but brutal tally of her fellow misfits.

It's been a long and dismal week, and she is ready to relax with a little heartfelt honesty.

"Woooow," Cleo says. "Is he trying to bring back fur or is that his _hair."_

They're already a couple songs deep into the DJ's set. Anne is waiting for that song from _The Lost Boys_ to play, even though it's impossible to dance to, because she knows she looks really cool when she glides through the empty dance floor like a specter haunting a crumbling Victorian house, smoking and looking intriguingly melancholy. Also that song is hype.

“Look,” Anne says, “that Tess girl is back again. Without a date, of course.”

Cleo squints across the room and finally picks out the shape of Tess. God knows why it takes her so long. In that skirt with her white thighs showing, Anne doesn’t know how anyone could miss her. "Huh," Cleo says.

“God, that is skanky,” Anne says, “is she trying to make us look at her ass?”

Cleo grins, lips peeling back from her teeth. “Not like there’s anything _to_ look at.”

“I don’t know who she’s trying to fool, ignoring me like that,” Anne says, “she’s only been in the scene for, like, a few months longer than me. It’s not like she’s some kind of established figure.”

“She’s only relevant ‘cause her ex-boyfriend got _murdered,_ ” Cleo says. “You know, I heard they still haven’t got a new bassist for _Schadenfreudist?_ You didn’t hear this from me, but Natasha says-”

The tops of Tess’s thighs flash as she leans over the bar to get her drink from the screamingly gay and very disinterested bartender. The fabric swishes in its flouncy pleats, reminding Anne of certain things from sweaty high school practice fields that are better left forgotten. Anne _Gwish_ was never a cheerleader. Anne _Gwish_ never stared up from the bottom of a five girl cheer pyramid and wished she was on the bottom of something else. Anna Ghorbani can keep all that lame teenybopper shit.

God, Tess is really such a wannabe. Look at that ankh. Anne was wearing them in gold _months_ before Tess turned up with gold. Or at least a week. Does she even need glasses? She probably thinks they make her look smart. Like that’ll do her any good, everyone knows boys don’t want smart girls.

“Isn’t she a little _old_ for the scene,” Anne says, eyeing the drink in Tess’s hand. “She’s like… twenty two or something.”

Cleo pauses in the middle of making eyes at some guy with a mohawk. “Are you still talking about that girl?”

“She broke up with a guy in a band,” Anne plows on, “like she didn’t even care? I had to waste weeks on strategically placing my lipstick in Deet’s bag before I could even maneuver him into asking me on a date. Does she think she’s better than me or something? _No_ one is better than me.”

“I’m better than you,” Cleo says, smoke pouring out from between her grinning teeth.

“Ugh,” Anne says, “I’m gonna get a drink.”

Tess is hanging out on her feet like a loser with no friends, drinking by the edge of the bar. It’s like nobody even wants to talk to her, and why should they? She’s nothing special. Anne takes a detour around the far side of the dance floor so she can come up on the same side of the bar as Tess without anyone thinking she meant to do it. As she strong-arms her way through the crowd Anne bumps her hip against Tess’s, and the liquor in the plastic cup sloshes over the side with a wet splat on the concrete warehouse floor.

“Wow,” Anne says, “klutzy much? You nearly ruined my dress.”

Tess looks from Anne to her cup to the wet spot that is exclusively on the floor. Like Anne would ever _willingly_ risk her clothes.

“You did that deliberately,” she says.

Anne settles her arms against her chest, digging in for the long game. “It’s not my fault you’re standing in the middle of the floor like a big stick in the mud,” she says. “This dress was _expensive_ , you know, it’s _antique.”_

Tess lifts the cup to her mouth and says, “Yeah, I think my Tita had one just like it.”

Anne stares. Tess speaks of her stylishness, but, what is this, in a negative way? How? The decoding process in the back of Anne’s brain sputters and smokes.

“Well _you’re_ certainly looking _modern_ ,” Anne says, leaning back as she gives Tess another pointed once-over, only lingering a second or two over the tantalizing hem this time. “That skirt is so norm-core I think I’m bleeding from my eyes. Did you pick it up at Ross Dress for Less?”

“I went thrifting,” Tess says, looking away from her.

“Alone?” Anne asks.

“Uh,” Tess says, “yeah. I’m. Trying to do more stuff by myself these days.”

The way she says it, for some reason, Anne believes her. That's kind of cool, she guesses. A solitary life is the only tenable existence for a true poet of the soul. Anne puffs her cigarette and shrugs a tight little shrug, and she says, “I know this great hole in the wall place downtown, nobody else knows about it. If you buy me a drink, I’ll take you there sometime.”

Not even Cleo knows about this place, but Anne is willing to part with the secret for a good cause. She is already smug and buzzed on the prospect of Tess trailing after her, all impressed and sparkly with gratitude, listening to everything Anne has to say about the place. In the changing room, Anne will sit on the chair and watch Tess button up lacy shirts and give her benediction for the ones that are chic enough, watch her pretty fingers twist button after button—

“No thanks,” Tess says, popping the bubble of fantasy like a hot lance. “I don’t know where you got the idea that we’re friends from, but you literally couldn’t pay me money to spend an afternoon with you.”

“Excuse you?” Anne says, opening her eyes fully for the first time that evening. “You’d be lucky to spend an _hour_ with me. I’m doing you a favor, ‘cause god knows some of your desperate wannabe flakiness is bound to rub off on me.”

“With your shit personality, you’d benefit from it,” Tess snarls.

Anne sways back. She doesn't have to take this shit from some little twiggy nobody, some pixie-faced boy-cut snotty bitch. Who does she think she is? Anne takes her cigarette out of her mouth. “You had better watch yourself, sweetie,” she says, leaning in close. “Nobody talks to me like that.”

Tess doesn’t back up. She smiles, hunching forward, cup still in hand. “You think you’re so much better than everyone else,” she says, “just because you’re beautiful and you have amazing hips and a collarbone I could crack an egg over, but you’re just made of the same old rotten meat as the rest of us, and when they put you in the ground someday, no one is going to care that you spent three hours on your eyeliner.”

Anne tucks a curl behind her hair. “So you do think I’m beautiful?”

Tess blinks. “Don’t take that the wrong way,” she says. “You still have the personality of a dead rat.”

“I do have great bones don’t I?” Anne says, running her fingertip over the bow of her collarbone. This dress shows it off really well too. When she looks up, Tess is fixated on her fingers. A smug flash of something hot goes all down her stomach. She steps forward, a dainty little step in her teetering heels, and stops just close enough to Tess that their chests almost make contact. “You wanna see for yourself?” she asks.

For a second Tess looks like she’s not going to play ball, but then her hand twitches at her side. Anne thrills at the weakness like a an animal scenting blood. Tess reaches out and presses the pad of exactly one finger to the ridge of bone, riding it up to the juncture of Anne’s neck, her skin cold and a little slick from the drink she’s been holding. Anne leans into it and shivers, that same hot smugness thrumming under her ribcage. Tess lingers against her.

Tess’s lipstick is red, like the hair that she bleached and dyed just after she broke up with Dillon. It's red and chess-board white when she opens her mouth to pull in a little breath. One by one, she settles the tips of her fingers against Anne’s neck.

“Not so above it now,” Anne says, “are you?”

 “I hope your plastic nose falls off,” Tess says.

“That is an unfounded and cruel rumor,” Anne tells her, tiling her head just a fraction of an inch to the side, just enough to reveal the rest of her skin. “I’m consistently persecuted for my natural beauty.”

Snap fast, Tess closes her other hand around the back of Anne’s neck, holding her still even as she drags herself closer. “Will you shut the fuck up,” Tess whispers, “about who’s persecuting you?”

“Everyone’s gonna see you,” Anne whispers back, “everyone’ll know how much you _wish_ I was interested in you.”

Tess pauses, and then her hand skates down from the side of Anne’s neck, down over her collar, the soft side of her breast, down to the small of her back. Anne can’t help it, Anne arches up into her.

“I don’t think that’s the only thing they’re gonna see,” Tess mutters.

“What?” Anne says.

Tess looks down at her like a hungry creature in the darkness; at her knife-point nails with the cigarette perched between them; at the line of her throat. “He should have fucking killed me when he had the chance,” she says, ruefully.

She disentangles herself abruptly, taking a quick drink of the thing in her hand which is mostly melting ice now, like she’s steeling her nerves. “You wanna get out of here?” she says.

Anne is suddenly dry mouthed and unsure whether she wants to crush Tess or be crushed by Tess—whether she wants to chew her up or swallow her whole.

Tess is silver like the moon, glowing and mysterious, and Anne forgets all about the sun-brown girls from the cheerleading squad that Anna Ghorbani never had the guts to kiss. Who the fuck gave Tess permission to look this cool and irresistible, especially to Anne, who has dated boys in _multiple_ bands? Who is this girl with her flashing glasses, with her ramrod spine—she couldn't have been here the whole time, Anne would have noticed it. This is not the first time Anne has looked at this sickle-moon whipcrack of a girl. Anne would have noticed it.

Anne knows when she wants something. She doesn't always know what it is that she wants, but she always knows when it's happening.

Anne furiously devotes a moment to trying to figure out if her hair still looks okay, which is hard to do without giving herself away, and then she says, “Whatever. Sure. This place is so last week anyway.”

 

 

An hour later, the violet glowing edge of the city skyline is just visible through the window of Tess's fifth floor apartment. Tess pulls her shirt over her head as Anne lies between her knees, nails creeping higher and higher up thighs. Tess throws her shirt into the pile of laundry in the corner and slaps Anne’s hand away from her hip, ruffling the hem of her skirt in the process.

“Not with those fucking nails,” Tess says.

Anne reconsiders her extremely fashionable black knife-points. It is _possible_ that they may not be the best idea for tonight. She sulks back into the pillow. “What am I supposed to _do_ then?”

Tess reaches down and darkens her thumb with the lipstick that sits glossy and wet on Anne’s bottom lip. “You’re supposed to smear your makeup, princess,” she says.

Anne tongues the curve of her mouth where Tess touched her, eyes wide. The shadow of the skirt hiked up around Tess's hips is almost unbearably tempting. All she can think of is the marks she’ll leave, where you could spread it open like a locket and see the obscene dark pattern of lips hidden there.

Tess notices her speechless staring and laughs, bending down to cage Anne’s face between her arms. “You should have thought about this before your reapplied your lipstick,” she says. Without her glasses, with her eyes like something out of an ancient temple painting, she is infuriatingly lovely. She says, “Maybe next time you’ll even make a practical decision for the first time in your life!”

Anne slides her fingers up under the skirt and feels silk underneath. She feels how Tess twitches against the whisper of her sharp nails, and she thinks to herself that it’s _highly_ unlikely she will ever do such a thing, but it’s best if Tess doesn’t know how badly she wants to see what comes now.

"Who said there's going to be a next time?" Anne says, already beginning to strategize.


End file.
